Proud to Present... Cookiesaurus Rex by Authors Amy Fellner Dominy & Nate Evans

After just making cut-out cookies with my grown daughter, this was the perfect way to end our day. I imagine that this story will elicit lots of baking and decorating desires after reading, as well! It's fun to think about a big, bad, bossy T-Rex wanting sprinkles and sparkles and struggling to stay in control as the decorator creates. Although we never really find out the gender of the decorator, I generalize to "him" because the illustrator is a male. A.G. Ford's illustrations are so much fun and I wondered how much hands-on cookie research he completed to create such realistic cookies. They really do look delicious and as if a he had studied a master-cookie-decorator! The all-dialogue text and use of speech bubbles will prompt some super fun writing at the early primary levels. It will be helpful for young students to dig deep into their schema and access past experiences that deal with the underlying themes of jealousy, dashed preconceived expectations, and greed. The story is written almost exclusively in the voice of T-Rex, with little character interaction. He reacts to what the hidden decorator is doing throughout the story and the other characters are bystanders. The illustrations show alternate cookie-character reactions (facial expressions) to T-Rex and it would be fun to discuss what the characters are thinking. Near the end of the story, T-Rex notices that the other cookies are looking at him. Two alternate cookies have one speech bubble each, which are colored the same as T-Rex's speech bubbles throughout the story. For young readers, a distinction in color would have been helpful, even as a read-aloud. But, the play on words cannot be denied and is an amusing way to end the story.

This light tale greets the deeper theme of jealousy with humor and will be a fun read aloud.
 
Mentor text alerts:

• All-dialogue text (speech bubbles)
• First person
• Metafiction-ish: Plays with the structure of the book by having the character interact with the hidden decorator. Since T-Rex looks at the reader several times and appears to be directly addressing the audience, there is a feeling that the intent is for the reader to feel involved, or be the decorator. But the decorator’s hands and face are visible in the story which limits the reader’s involvement.

 
I received a review copy of this book from Disney-Hyperion in exchange for an honest review.